Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering will build two LNG barges for NOVATEK projects

South Korean Corporation Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering signed the contract for construction of two barges for 748 million dollars for transshipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) of NOVATEK.

Construction of the barges with the capacity 360 thousand cubic meters will be completed in the next two years, as energybase.ru informs. By the end of 2022 it is planned to send them to the area of operation - on the route between the Kamchatka Peninsula and Murmansk. There the barges will serve as a transshipment point for LNG tankers for the projects “Yamal LNG” and “Arctic LNG 2”. In addition, the parties agreed on the possibility of building of two bunker ships.

As it is noted in Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering, use of such barges will assist to increase speed of gas delivery from the shelf in the Arctic Ocean to countries in Europe and Asia, as well as to reduce costs when using LNG tankers.

NOVATEK plans to build two LNG transshipment terminals in Murmansk and Kamchatka. Ice-class vessels will transport gas along the Northern Sea Route to these complexes, then LNG will be transshipped to conventional tankers. Owing to this, the company will reduce transport costs.